Run Your Own Race

So it's been 18 days since I last made an entry, and it already feels like I should apologize for not writing sooner, but... in a pre-Trump world, that wouldn't have been that fucking long. heavy sigh

I keep reaching for some idea of what hope might be, and I'm still not quite sure I've found it. It seems like, when I was younger, hope was easier to grasp. Now, it's this fleeting idea that I reach for, but as soon as I wrap my fingers around it... it disappears. There are a myriad of reasons for this... but I think the greatest is the lie we're told as young people that incremental change is how real progress happens.

When I was younger, I think that lie was easy to swallow because I felt I had all the time in the world for this shit to work itself out. At middle age, though, having seen so many struggles, it feels like an endless battle that will never be completed or realized, or at least not in my lifetime. That's led me to the deep understanding that incremental change is a myth sold to us by the powerful people who profit off division.

Fuck that. It's time to break some shit.

President Fuckboy has put together an al Fuckboy cabinet, and before he's even been sworn in, they are essentially running a silent coup. Fuckbrother Musk is literally demanding the Senate shut down the government until Fuckbrother Trump gets into office. Meanwhile, hate has become mainstream again.

I haven't gone out much because I don't know if I trust myself not to go all Jesus and the moneychangers in the temple on the first Fuckbrother Trump stand selling cheap-ass MAGA products to cheap-ass MAGAts.

But other than that, everything's fine. 😉

Since the election, things have been weird. In fact, weird doesn't even cover the whole... vibe. My little business that sells pronoun and pride flag buttons saw a bump in business selling 'you are safe with me' buttons – enough that I was able to make an upgrade or two. I don't like the reason, but I appreciate the support. Both in giving me business and in wearing flair that sends out the message that you're NOT MAGA.

It's kept me busy, which has been very welcome. I cried a bit the first two days. Not because my candidate lost, but because the country lost and in doing so revealed itself to be beyond redemption. That last spark of hope that humanity would do the right thing fizzled out that night.

Spoiler: Humanity almost NEVER does the right fucking thing.

And so here we are, on the other end of that tense tense tense election, and I happen to be one of those “pronoun people” the right has scapegoated... I have no idea how things are going to go in the next however many years. I have a sliver of an idea based on how the first term went, but this man now has no checks, no balances, and no one with a shred of humanity, empathy, or compassion is anywhere near government.

To paraphrase one article I read... we're about to find out what happens when 1% of the country is targeted with the full wrath of the United States Government.

For cheaper groceries.

Really America? 🤦🏻

The groceries aren't even going to get cheaper because none of the people who voted for this guy understand economics at even the most basic level. I can't even try to be empathetic towards people this blind to reality. I don't even think it's an education thing, I think it's a weak mind thing, and I'll go further to say I think religious belief is what makes that mind weak in the first place. Weak enough to fall for a cult that pretends to be a political party.

Fucking idiot shitbags.

But... look... I have to move on from this... reality is what it is and all that. I just have to take steps to protect my own peace and my own family. Queer, trans, and nonbinary people don't just cease existing because the government is ceded to a bunch of idiots. It just means we have to exist for ourselves and ourselves alone.

It also means the constraints of reality don't really apply to us anymore – not in the same way they apply to other people at any rate. When society creates a box and tries to force you into that box, but you don't actually fit, that means you have literally everything else. All the people in that world? All they have is what's in that box. You? You have everything NOT in that box, and that's a whole lot more.

I dunno, maybe that's why my creativity has been off the charts lately. 😁

I've been kind of struggling to determine what to really do with this blog. I've kind of been using it scattershot, with no clear idea of what I was going to do with it, or really why I had it in the first place, I guess. I've just always felt the need to write, but I want to do it in the way we did before there were comment sections on the internet. Dance like no one is watching.

😆 Blog like no one is reading? Ha! I'm now making this a journal of sorts. No demands, no expectations, just... whatever I feel like writing about when the mood takes me. That feels right. There's got to be a middle ground between sharing yourself with the world so the world can benefit from shared experiences, and protecting your peace from the parts of the world that don't deserve an opportunity to comment.

I feel like we had that somewhere in the 90s where if you knew a tiny bit of HTML, you could build a quick slapshot journal hosted on an old UNIX college account the university forgot to disable. I'd spend hours reading about the lives of people around me, and I'd never once be bothered with thoughts of what other people might think. So yeah.

Here we go. Pushing the reboot button.

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